


the saddest word

by thisismetrying



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drug Addiction, F/M, Hurt, Overdose, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29327853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismetrying/pseuds/thisismetrying
Summary: The saddest word in the whole wide world is the word almost, and for Beth and Benny, it is an endgame where it has all gone, it is too late to unpin themselves, and so they only push wood.-or Beth and Benny and the Nikita Gill poem that always makes me cry
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	the saddest word

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Nikita Gill poem:  
> "The saddest word  
> in the whole wide world  
> is the word almost.
> 
> He was almost in love.  
> She was almost good for him.  
> He almost stopped her.  
> She almost waited.  
> He almost lived.  
> They almost made it."

**The saddest word in the whole wide world is the word _almost_.**  
  
**_She was almost in love._ **

Benny tells her he loves her after she gets back from Moscow. He loves Beth Harmon, realized somewhere in the time between her leaving New York and her being in Moscow, that he doesn’t want to live without her, that he loves her.

He says it simply, plainly, and for once, without any other motives. He tells her, and he says she doesn’t have to say it back.

So Beth doesn’t.

And what does she know about love?

Maybe, in another life, she could would know about love like that. In a life where her mother didn’t drive the car into the bridge. In a life where an orphanage didn’t give pills to little kids. In a life where she wins against Borgov in Mexico. In a life where Alma doesn’t die before she’s 80, doesn’t die of hepatitis brought on by drinking her existence away. In a life where Harry’s never gave her a warning about being the next Morphy. In a life where people stay. Maybe, in a life like that, she could be in love and love Benny.

But in this life, with the pieces on the board like this, set up like a problem in a chess book, the most she can be is almost in love.

She almost loves his genius, until she remembers her mother and the LIFE reporter lady’s words and how genius and madness go together. She almost loves how he keeps a knife at his side, until she is reminded that it is for protection from anything, and that what you really need protection from the most is other people. She almost loves his shitty apartment basement and how it is so _Benny,_ until she remembers a man who adopted her and left her and Mrs. Wheatley and tried to take their home from her and how men like convenience most of all. She almost loves how he begged her to come back to New York, how he called her in Moscow, until she remembers a man named Paul who came out to a trailer in the woods to plead and how that same man turned them ( _her_ ) away when it really mattered.

But most of all, she is only almost in love with him because to be in love with Benny would require loving herself. And she is much too damaged to love like that, she thinks.

  
**_He was almost good for her._ **

Benny is almost there for her this time.

When Beth tells him that she wants to reach for a drink or the bottle of pills she keeps tucked in the back of her medicine closet, he reminds her of who she is and what she’s capable of.

And when she almost breaks down and calls him telling him that she wants it so badly she might rip her skin off, at a tournament in Illinois, he drives there to get her and they head to a basement apartment where she knows she won’t.

There, she is reminded of all the people who gathered there, who love her.

And she is met with Benny’s stubborn gaze, his insistence that she can do this, that she is the best there is and she doesn’t need the pills or the booze.

She leaves and comes back and comes and goes, like the queen she is, going whichever way she wants.

Things are alright, until they aren’t.

It’s a quiet night, like all the nights when Beth comes to visit. Beth is curled on his couch cushions, reading the latest European chess magazine that’s come in, when Benny heads for the door, putting on his hat and his coat.

“Where are you going?” Beth asks.

“To poker night,” Benny answers, only slightly uneasily.

Beth nods. “Can I come?”

“You can,” he says, hesitating. “But it’s all men.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ve heard that before.” If only she had a nickel for every time.

“Not like this.”

“Oh,” Beth says, trying to hide her disappointment. “I guess I’ll just stay in, then,” she says, though her eyes don’t leave him and the short space between the door.

He nods.

He almost pauses when he heads out, almost doesn’t go, almost stays in with Beth. But he needs the money. And what’s more, he needs the win.

He comes back to her, passed out on the cushions that pass for his couch, an empty wine bottle next to her, and he doesn’t let himself think about the _almosts._

  
**_She almost stopped him._ **

He comes to Kentucky, drives his little blue beetle all the way down.

It is the first time he has ever been to her home.

He pulls up outside and he looks so _strange_ outside of her house, in her tiny suburban neighborhood, in his trench coat and cowboy hat and she can’t help but laugh, just a little.

“What are you laughing at, Harmon?” he asks, with a grin on his face.

She chooses not to answer and instead ushers him inside.

He doesn’t miss the smell of vodka that lingers in the house, though Beth has lit a candle in the an attempt to mask it. When he goes to the bathroom, he doesn’t miss the bottle of pills in the medicine cabinet that he snoops in.

They play chess and they eat. After, they go up to Beth’s room, with the lovely curtains and pretty bedspread.

They make love, though she still has not told him she loves him. She knows he wonders if she ever will. She knows she won’t.

Beth buys the groceries and Benny cooks. Well, mostly. Benny can’t cook much so they end up eating out a bunch, but neither minds.

They play and it a few times, they almost end up in a draw. But Beth pulls it out. Benny wins a few rounds of speed chess, but not many.

For a few weeks, they eat and they play chess and they make love. It is a peek into an almost domestic bliss, one neither is quite sure how to feel about it. But it is only a temporary thing.

He leaves because he has a tournament in Miami to get to and so he places his duffel in the trunk of the beetle.

She almost tells him to _wait, don’t go_ , as he’s pulling away from her Kentucky house. She almost stops him.

Instead, she watches the fumes as they leave, almost coughing in the exhaust.

  
**_He almost waited._ **

He thinks that she is clean, that she is sober, that she is better. He thought that the love and support of her friends, of him, would be enough. He thought that she was stronger now.

But love is not a medicine, and it is not a cure, and addiction is not about how much love or how much strong will you have.

They learn this the hard way.

“I just can’t do this,” Beth says. “I can’t do this with you, while I’m…” she trails off, waving her hand over herself, at her bloodshot eyes, at her mouth that stinks like whiskey, her hair that’s lost its luster.

She doesn’t need to say it, he understands, but she does. “I need time, space.”

He nods, slowly. 

“I’m not asking anything of you,” she says.

He knows she isn’t, but he wants to give anyway. But he is not sure what to give. So he simply says, “Okay,” and hopes that she will understand it is an unspoken promise.

But time is hard and waiting is hard and loving someone who doesn’t quite love you back is hard. And waiting for someone to face their demons is even harder.

Waiting is like watching your own clock tick down, with no good move coming to you. Waiting is like the hope that your opponent will make that fatal queen sacrifice and you can rebound. Waiting on the precipice of _almost_ is like standing on a razor’s edge.

In the end, he finds he can’t do it, can’t stand still. It has never been his strong suit, he has always preferred speed chess. He is 30 years old and he feels his life passing by. He’s a cowboy, he’s a pirate, he’s Benny, he’s a king, he needs to move, even if it is only incrementally.

He doesn’t move on, he doesn’t find someone else, but he doesn’t wait for her anymore.

  
**_She almost lived._ **

She almost drinks herself to death, blacking out in the living room and taking too many tranquilizers and it is only by the stupid accident of a grocery delivery scheduled that she is found at all. She almost has to have a liver transplant. She almost became her mothers(s). She almost died, the nurses tell her.

But she didn’t.

Her therapist tells her that she’s afraid of her own potential, of her own past, of all the “perhaps” that rattle around in brain, along with the plays and openings and pawns. 

She recovers and she pours the alcohol down the drain and she gets a sponsor and she collects her chips, and when she almost breaks down, she remembers the hospital and the shakes and the way she thought she would never be able to concentrate on chess again.

She starts to love herself, makes herself count all the things about her that are worthy of loving. She starts to be good to herself, forgives others for things that can’t be changed, and finally, herself. She starts to wait for herself, telling herself that these things take time. She starts to stop herself as she reaches for the pills.

She sees Benny at a regional tournament, in San Francisco. The color has mostly returned to her cheeks by then.

“Hi,” she says, coming up to stand beside him.

“Hi,” he says.

They depart to their respective matches.

She almost waits, when she is finished with her game. But she doesn’t and instead goes back to her hotel room, back to the tea and the coins she keeps in her purse as a reminder.

She repeats this, day after day. Matches. Tea. Coins. Tournaments. Water. Sponsor calls. Invitationals. Sobriety.

It is not a bad life. In fact, in some ways, it is better than before. But she thinks of all she’s lost in the process, and all of the maybes, the perhaps, the could have beens, the almosts.

And so she breathes and there is air in her lungs and her bloodstream is clean, but sometimes she feels as if the world is mocking her, showing her a shadow of a life, riddled with the taunting of almost. She wonders whether it is actually _living._

  
**They _almost_ made it.**

They see each other, every once in a while.

They don’t talk much beyond games, beyond polite small talk and strategy.

They don’t talk about the ghosts that follow each of them around, they don’t talk about how they almost had the right timer, the right board, the right pieces, the right plays. 

The saddest word in the whole wide world is the word _almost,_ and for Beth and Benny, it is an endgame where it has all gone, it is too late to unpin themselves, and so they only push wood.

**Author's Note:**

> So this quote always makes me cry and I'm in my Beth/Benny feels this week (despite drowning in work and I really should not be writing fic instead of reading/writing actual school work but whatevs)


End file.
